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The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

efinancialcareers.com

511–520 of 869 posts

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#511
I'd love to learn C++ and jump ship from the Data Science job I work, but I'm not even sure where I would start. Sure there are lots of videos about programming in Modern C++ but the reality is none of the codebases you work on will probably use. And a lot of places just use a subset of C++ or just C with classes, so then how much of C++ do I actually need to know? That coupled with the fact that they are paid less, makes me think I should just learn a python web framework since I already know python, and some Html and CSS and just apply to a python job

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#512
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of this to say: if you want C++ programmers, you need to pay competitive enough rates to pull them away from there. I'd modify this to say "All of this to say: if you want programmers, you need to pay competitive rates." I worked in real estate for a while (as a software dev) and my boss, who was a realtor, always said "there's no house problem that price can't solve". The labor analogy for me is "there's no la…

160k puts you in the top 1% of UK earners. With bonus that job is comfortably in that bracket. UK salaries are no where near US levels. Edit: my point is that a top 1% salary seems about right relatively for a tech lead position.

But sheiks and oligarchs are buying all the real estate, so the cost of living is pretty similar.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>as a rails dev, if I were to start a new project today I would still pick rails. It makes building web apps a breeze. It's also a breeze if you use .NET and it will run circles around the Ruby app.

haha but then I have to learn the entire .NET / windows ecosystem which is a huge jump considering i've only ever developed on mac/linux. I am using wsl now though and running circles won't matter because for most web apps the DB is usually the bottleneck anyway

But you can use .NET on both Linux and Mac. As for DB being the limit, usually that's only the case for simple CRUD apps. In microservices and high load apps, performance matters.

.NET is just one example. It could be Go or Java.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#514
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting; could this be because you've been using outdated C++ ? (legacy codebases started before C++98 tend to be particularly painful) FWIW, I prefer the power of C++ over Rust's hand-holding; but can also see its appeal for someone that's not as confident over the minutia.

Not the person you asked, but for me (coming from C++20, with lambdas, async, etc), the big win is that the borrow checker automates away boring PR comments about "you used std::unique_ptr in a non-idiomatic way that is technically safe, and it bleeds memory unsafety into some random API, so write this level N+1 magic instead". It also checks that all my threaded code is data race free. On the downside, it's support…

  > On the downside, it's support for safe (in the sense that the compiler checks it) lock free programming is basically non-existent, which means that stuff that would be easy in C++ ends up being in Rust unsafe blocks that you need a PhD in type theory to reason about.
I'm not familiar with the C++ built-in facilities for lock-free stuff (but learning about them currently)

Could you expand on this if you're willing, maybe with some pseudocode?

I've also been curious about things like cache alignment, aligned memory, and false-sharing size detection in Rust -- all of which C++ has as std built-ins

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I am happy I transitioned from C/C++ to backend. And frankly, I do like backend more.

c & c++ are backend languages, in my experience - what do you mean?

I mean web backend, web apps, services, microservices.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#516
post #239

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Alternatively, web is generally more valuable. You don’t buy a new washing machine because the current firmware sucks, but you will shop somewhere else if Newegg’s website is terrible. That relationship is generally true where people rarely test embedded software until after a purchase, but people tend to jump ship more frequently online. Net result a lot of critical infrastructure and devices suck as much as possibl…

I’m building a house at the moment and I have been insisting that I am able to actually test all the built in appliances with power to see if the software is garbage. I have found that most of the high end brands have a completely horrible user experience. Miele is the worst I’ve tried, and I found that as you go up the price range even inside that brand the experience gets worse. The top end Miele induction cooktop…

Good to know about Miele ranges -- this would certainly infuriate me. I wonder if their higher end dishwashers have the same usability problems.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#517
post #303
post #41

I've seen this story several times. Once a language no longer has a developer pipeline, it becomes a language with no future. No matter how important and widely used. You wind up with jobs begging for qualified developers. Given how systems last, the language may survive indefinitely. As nobody dares migrate projects off of it. But employers will struggle more and more to find employees. The first language that this…

> But nobody wants to go into COBOL for fairly obvious reasons. On YouTube, type in "COBOL Mainframe", and you'll find out pretty quickly that there's a plenty of guys from India, including juniors who work with or on COBOL and Mainframes.

You have a point.

However I'd also say that I'm not surprised to see people from India taking jobs that most developers don't want.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

haha but then I have to learn the entire .NET / windows ecosystem which is a huge jump considering i've only ever developed on mac/linux. I am using wsl now though and running circles won't matter because for most web apps the DB is usually the bottleneck anyway

But you can use .NET on both Linux and Mac. As for DB being the limit, usually that's only the case for simple CRUD apps. In microservices and high load apps, performance matters. .NET is just one example. It could be Go or Java.

microservices start being useful when your monolith becomes too large for your engineering department to work on simultaneously. If you force good engineering practices and quality code reviews, you can scale this up to at least 100 devs. Microservices are more about Conway's law

high load apps I agree with, pick the technology that is appropriate, but again, for new projects I would say any technology that gives you speed of development (like rails) is far far far superior to speed of the technology.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> crypto-tainted If the government did its job and we had sound money, and taxation were explicit instead of this wacky adjustable-and-unpredictable-devaluation that is inflation, there would be no need for cryptocurrency.

I don't know why you say that, because even in lieu of high inflation, USD has been less volatility than the majority of cryptocurrencies.

With fiat you KNOW you're getting poorer by the minute, but with crypto you have the hope you will earn more.

Fwiw I have a grand total of 300€ "invested" (or "lost" if you're a pessimist) in crypto, so I'm not exactly a crypto fanatic.

Re: The pool of talented C++ developers is running dry

#520
C++ is my favorite language. When I started my 'side project' (a new kind of data management system called Didgets) I used it exclusively.

Before I semi-retired to work on the project full-time, I would sometimes check out the help-wanted postings for various software companies. It became more and more rare to see a job posting that focused on C++ skills. Systems level programming and being able to write very performant code does not seem to be nearly as high a priority today.

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